Knaresborough

This is where you flee if you've just assassinated Archbishop Thomas Becket. The castle was built by the Normans circa 1100, but its royal heyday was 1200-1400. In 1648 it was "slighted" by the Parliamentarians, partly demolished to prevent rebels using it in future, as were many others across Britain and Ireland. The citizens promptly looted the ruins (an early form of recycling) to build their own mansions with "castle stone". The Courthouse Museum within is an original Tudor courthouse.

Ursula Southeil or "Mother Shipton" (1488-1561) lived here and made various scary prophecies. Much of what's attributed to her is later invention, especially the famous prophecy "The world to an end shall come, in eighteen hundred and eighty-one." This was written in 1862, and later amended to "1981" when cosmic events failed to oblige; there's probably a 2031 version coming soon. Her supposed birthplace, the cave of the Petrifying Well, is a mix of creepy and tacky. Reached by a 20 minute riverside walk through the woods, it's a rock overhang with a continual drip of lime-rich water from above. The limestone solidifies, as if building a stalactite, so any object left here for a few months becomes stone. A whole tourist trade has built up around this: teddy bears and similar soft toys are popular sacrificial objects, what's that really all about?